BENGALURU: In a suspected hacking case, a young woman looking for a job, lost Rs 50,000 after she fell prey to an offer letter sent in the name of a multinational software company. Not only did the victim receive the offer from an email from a seemingly genuine ID, the domain was that of a global management consulting and professional services company that provides strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations services — Accenture.
Twenty-two-year-old Roopa B (name changed on her request), a fresh engineering graduate, had posted on various job portals, sharing her resume as looking for a job. She received an email to attend an interview for Accenture. “A technical and HR round interview was carried out over telephone for about 15-20 minutes on January 10 around 4.30pm. Two days later, I received an email from an email ID where an appointment letter was attached,” Roopa told The New Indian Express.
However, the letter asked the young lady to pay Rs 50,000 for training as she was a fresher.
She transferred the amount, following which she was sent an employee ID and asked to report to the company. This time, the letter was from hr@accenture.com.
On January 19, when she reported to the company in Global Village close to Mysore Road, she was shocked to know the company had not sent any such mail. The staff there said they hadn’t hired her nor demanded any money for training.
She then filed a complaint with the city cyber crime police station. The FIR has been filed, a copy of which is with TNIE.
Police investigations revealed that the money was transferred to an Axis Bank account in a JP Nagar branch. Also, one of the phone calls made to her from the company was found to be from a number that was a land-line number of Accenture.
Accenture, in an official statement, said: “We are aware that these unfortunate recruitment scams occur from time to time in the industry. It is important to stress that no one is ever required to pay for employment at Accenture.”
What Experts Say
Emails can be sent through dark sites to anybody. Through various mobile applications, call spoofing is done where one can use somebody’s phone number to call. It is very easy to detect when they check the IP address of the sender of the email. This is rampantly happening across the country but corporate companies don’t report it. They (the criminals) do complete homework on companies they use to cheat people. They know specific email IDs to communicate.
— Kislay Chaudary, Chairman & CEO of Indian Cyber Army